Bite The Wax Tadpole (17 page)

“Yeah? Brilliant. Good for you.”

Rob hated the fact that Jimmy seemed to mean it. When he thought about it, Jimmy had always been amiable with him even when he’d torn his scripts into confetti. He’d never taken the criticism to heart, never railed against him. As if he knew it didn’t matter, that “Ricketty Street” was just a cut-through to Sunset Boulevard. Sack me, see if I care.

“What about you?”, asked Niobe. “Got another blockbuster lined up?”

Jimmy looked about him in the manner of a melodramatic Edwardian actor before whispering: “Bit hush, hush actually but, well, I’m up for the next James Bond.”

“Talking of original concepts, as we were.” That’s it, keep on with the cynicism, don’t let him hear your teeth gnashing.

“Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a bit long in the arse but we’re kicking around some pretty nifty ideas. We’ve got Cate Blanchett for starters.”

“Who’s she playing? The new Miss Funnyfanny?”

“No, Bond. She’s playing 007.”

“Wow!”, said Niobe.

“It’s what you should be doing”, continued Jimmy.

“Playing James Bond? That’s very flattering but I don’t think so.”

“Writing movies. In Hollywood. Make some real money, get your name up in lights.”

“I don’t know... Hollywood... not my style really.” Not my style – what did that mean? I don’t want to try because I might fail and where would I be then? I don’t have enough faith in myself to risk living off my talent in the land of High Concept and Low Morals?

“Tell you something – you’d feel a whole lot better about yourself if you got a movie writing credit. And, if I can do it, you bloody well can. Movie? Piece of piss after plotting five episodes of soap a week for forty weeks a year.”

“I suppose but...”

“You’ve got the gift, mate.”

“I have?”

“Yeah. You do great meetings.”

“Meetings, right. I was rather hoping you were going to say what a great writer I was but...”

“Hah! Hollywood’s bloody chocka with good writers, mate . And everybody and his grandmother knows how to put a script together. All those books out there about the writer’s journey, inciting incidents and all that bollocks. So why the fuck do all these crap films get made? I’ll tell you. ‘Cos Hollywood’s also chocka with bullshit artists who can bullshit producers into believing their magnum hopeless is the best thing since “Casablanca”. Meetings, that’s where it all happens. Most producers can’t read without moving their lips so you have to either sleep with ‘em, flatter ‘em or bullshit ‘em. You might actually have written the best thing since “Casablanca” but if the producer thinks you’re some sort of no-nuts from Nutsville your script’s going nowhere. And that’s what you’re good at, mate. Meetings. Always fun your meetings. Even when you were telling me my script stank like a lap dancer’s G-string. And that accent of yours. You start talking and these guys are going to start thinking Burton, Hopkins, Dylan Thomas. You’ll have them eating out of your hand.”

“It’s a thought, I suppose.”

Jimmy took out his wallet.

“You still got that script you did way back? You know, the aliens in the Outback thing. ”

He did . Turning yellow in a box at the back of the garage but yes, it was still in the archives waiting to be shipped off to the National Library in Canberra should he become a Nobel Laureate.

“I think it’s knocking about somewhere.”

“It was ripper, mate, priceless. Johnny Depp as the enigmatic stranger, Geoffrey Rush as the drunken copper and you’re looking at a hit, mate, a palpable bloody hit.”

Christ, thought Rob, he could even remember the characters. Maybe it wasn’t such a clunker, after all.

“Here, this is my agent’s card. Give him a call. He’s a miserable bastard but his brother’s Quentin Tarantino’s orthodontist so... Right, what are you guys drinking?”

Rob looked at the card, ran his thumb over the embossed lettering, severely doubting as he did so, that he would ever call the strangely named Egon Fuhrken. Still...

“Actually, we’ve got to go”, he said with a decisiveness that quite surprised him.

“We do?”, queried Niobe, mid sip of Pernod.

“Yes, we need to talk.”

“We need to talk”, echoed Jimmy. “Good line. Mind if I use it some time.”

A southerly change had slipped through the city and Oxford Street, though still crowded, was pleasant to stroll down. Except that it wasn’t. Not if you’ve just ended a relationship with someone and you’re waiting for that someone’s reaction.

“Pregnant? How can she be pregnant? You told me you didn’t sleep with her any more.”

“Be fair, I didn’t say sleep. Of course I sleep with her.”

He wasn’t sure himself whether he was being humorous or merely pedantic.

“You know what I mean! God! “

“Anyway, it was her brother’s fault. He’s into making his own wine, see, and he gave us this carrot and parsnip stuff, not bad actually, and well, one thing led to another and... you get the picture.”

They paused outside a small, open-fronted eatery where checked tablecloths, chardonnay and the in-crowd spilled out onto the pavement. The picture of which Rob had spoken seemed to be forming in Niobe’s mind. And when it had finished forming it was a graphic one.

She screamed. It was like the scream of a parlour maid in a 1950s film when she discovers Lord Ne’erdowell slumped over his desk with an Afghan knife in his back. Chardonnay was spilled, prawns choked upon and hairs raised on the backs of necks. Rob could physically feel the blood drain into his boots. What did these people think he’d just done to her? He grinned stupidly, as if that would help dispel any thoughts onlookers had about him being a bag snatcher or a sex pest.

“I mean, I’d love to go off to a Greek island with you”, he said quickly and, he hoped, soothingly. “But I’ve got responsibilities, more responsibilities. Did I tell you it was twins?”

She put a hand to her mouth as if to halt a rush of words then took a deep breath before speaking calmly.

“ You’re a man of integrity, a man of honour, I know that.”

He felt like an absolute shit but felt it best to agree with her. “Right, well, I’m glad you see it that way. I’m really sorry. Really, really sorry. If I could...”

She put her index and forefinger to his lips to hush him. “Please, if it’s over let’s not talk any more. Just one last kiss before we say goodbye forever.”

Was that it? Was it going to be that easy? One scream followed by a farewell kiss? Relief flooded through him like Rocky Mountain melt-water through a ravine. Smiling sadly, she leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. And then she stepped in front of a bus.

The bus, fortunately, was not travelling at speed but the driver’s eyeballs still nearly flew out of their sockets as he slammed on the brakes. Rob gasped and cringed, waiting for the awful impact. But she passed out of his line of sight as the bus dipped its nose violently into the road. A dark cloud of shredded rubber rose from the tyres. He couldn’t see her but he heard more brakes screeching, horns honking. A crash, a yell and a motor bike spun, sans motorcyclist, past the bus. A moment later the rider followed it, sliding smoothly on his leather clad bottom. The bus lurched forward. Niobe was on the other side of the road disappearing through the crowd.

Travelling home from the radio station by taxi that afternoon, Charlea had gazed thoughtfully at the ubiquitous Maccas and KFCs and Red Roosters as they slipped by the window. How many of the staff, flipping burgers and shovelling chips, were out of work actors? And what about the supermarket shelf fillers and the petrol station attendants and the blokes digging up the streets? Could the girl holding up the stop/go sign at the road works be mentally running through her next audition piece? What about the taxi driver? He could have been the former Yugoslavia’s foremost interpreter of the works of Ibsen. And how many of them hated and resented people like her who got into acting by a fluke? Up until she’d entered the magazine competition she’d wanted to be a veterinary assistant.

Instead of going straight home, she’d asked the taxi driver to drop her off outside the local library where she browsed along the shelves marked “Drama and Theatre.” Stanislavsky – she’d heard of him. She slid out a copy of “An Actor’s Work”, flipped through the pages and then slipped it under her arm. By the time she’d got to the check out she’d added “A Shakespearean Actor Prepares”, “The Way of the Actor”, “Strasberg and the Actor’s Studio”, “Voice and Speech in the Theatre” and “Caring for Small Pets.”

And now she sat up in bed, ear plugs in to drown out the sounds of music from the lounge room, learning how to deliver iambic pentameter. She’d show them, all those Harriets out there, that she could act.

“Now is | the win-| ter of | our dis-| con- tent...”

Terry crushed the beer can and lobbed it towards the bin. It hit the edge of the coffee table and bounced behind Marge’s favourite chair. Pick it up in the morning, he decided. He contemplated getting up and fetching another one from the fridge but he couldn’t be arsed. On the TV, in fading and beer-fuddled black and white, James Cagney was shot by Edmund O’Brien and staggered around before firing his gun into the gas tanks he was standing on top of. “Made it, Ma. Top of the world”, yelled Cagney just before the tanks exploded in balls of flame and the credits rolled.

That’s the way to go, that’s the way to go, Terry mumbled to himself as he lapsed into a dreamless sleep.

Phyllida had spent the evening alternating between learning her lines for the Monologues and the live episode and now it was time to relax with a nice cold glass of Semillon. She was opening the fridge door when the phone, the landline, rang.

“Hello?” Silence. “Who is this?” Silence. “Is there anybody there?” No response but there was definitely someone on the end of the line. Still with the phone to her ear, Phyllida went back into the lounge, switched the light off and twitched the blinds. On the far side of the street, in a pool of light, was a figure in a long overcoat talking into, or at least holding, a mobile phone. The figure snapped the phone shut. At the same time Phyllida’s call disconnected. The figure stepped into the shadows.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Manager of “The Black Gum” pub stood beside his barman and nodded at the old bloke sitting at the table in the corner talking to himself.

“Keep an eye on him, Darren. Had one just like him at the last place I managed. Thought Jesus Christ was sending messages to him through the juke box.”

Malcolm, the old bloke under observation, sipped at his melancholy beer and tried to avoid looking in the direction of Norman who was lying on his elbow along a bank of seats, head resting on his hand.

“You know, I expected rather more of the after-life than hanging round TV studios and dingy pubs. It’s what I spent most of my actual life doing.”

“Yes, well, as soon as they cut this tumour out you can be gone. Quite where I do not know and, to be brutally frank, I do not care.”

Malcolm was still grappling with what to do with that portion of his life that yet remained now that the comforting rug of a long run in “Ricketty Street” had been yanked from under his feet.

He’d spoken to his agent, a man who still had plate jugglers and novelty poodle acts on his books, and he’d been less than sanguine about finding work in the immediate future.

“Mate, it’s all reality shows and serial killers out there in TV land these days. The stage you should be on. King Lear is what you should be doing, I know, but the stage? Who goes to the theatre any more? Only thing I’ve got is a TV ad for Freedom Funerals. Mind you, it’s money for old rope. All you have to do is lie there with your arms folded across your chest looking serene. You can do serene, can’t you?”

Be good practice, thought Malcolm, as he put down the phone.

Plumbing is what his father had wanted him to do. “If the Russkies drop the bomb on Sydney”, he’d told him back in those warm, comforting days of the Cold War, “you could name your price if you was a plumber.” It had seemed odd to him back then to posit your career on some loony in Moscow pressing the red button marked “ World War Three” but if he had become a plumber he’d be retired by now to a beachfront property up the coast. Instead...

“I must be here for a purpose, don’t you think?”, said Norman.

“Apart from making my every waking moment a misery, you mean?”

Norman sat up and adopted a pose denoting deep thought – chin resting on hand, index finger running alongside his nose.

“Do you recall “It’s a Wonderful Life”? Clarence, the angel, showed James Stewart that life really was worth living.”

“Whatever you are, you’re no angel.”

“Or “A Christmas Carol”. Did I ever tell you I played Marley’s Ghost in “Scrooge on Ice” at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre?”

Malcolm shook his head and took a long pull on his beer. The combination didn’t seem to be a good one. His head began to spin. Or was it the room? Was his head spinning one way and the room the other? Whatever, whichever, it wasn’t a great feeling. Now there were lights, hundreds of them, thousands. All spinning. But they weren’t lights. No, it was a glitter ball, a huge glitter ball. And there was music, too. Music from a lifetime ago. Disco music. Donna Summer if he wasn’t mistaken. But he must be mistaken because it wasn’t 1970 something or other and he wasn’t in a disco, he was...

God’s socks! He was in a disco! And it looked very much like ... damn it, it was... Strawberry Jim’s in Chelsea, a sliced goal kick from Stamford Bridge. When he’d tried his luck on the English theatre scene this is where he ended up most Saturday nights. Bloody hell, this brought back memories. Practising his dance moves in front of the wardrobe mirror in his digs... taking the creases out of his three piece white suit with a flat iron and a wet handkerchief... smoothing down his lovingly layered hair... driving up West in the lime green Cortina 1600GT with the Wolfrace wheels. Now that was a great car although he’d never figured out why it stopped working when it rained. Ah, well, happy days. He started chuckling at the time the Virgo sisters, Sharon and Karen, had turned up completely blotto and...

Wait a minute! Wait a bloody minute! Was he going absolutely insane? He should be, he was, in a pub in Newtown, Sydney in 2013 not in a pommy disco forty years ago. But this was definitely Strawberry Jim’s. The Black Gum had completely disappeared. He recognised the awful decor, recognised as awful even in the Seventies, and the long forgotten faces. There was Eric the hippy, Trevor the used-car salesman, Barm Pot the mad Yorkshireman with his seriously sexy wife, Lady Deborah de Vere Shawcross Partington. They were all dancing, doing the Hustle, arms flopping, hearts pulsing to the four-on-the- floor beat, sweating under the surging, urgent lights.